'I didn't want to leave': hero policewoman speaks out

THE constable who sat with Madeleine Pulver for almost 10 hours, while what they thought was a bomb hung around the teenager's neck, said she never thought about leaving the girl's side.

Speaking to Channel 7's Today Tonight on Tuesday, Constable Karen Lowden said she found the situation surreal and there were moments when she thought about what would happen if the device around Madeleine's neck turned out to be live.

"I did think about my family for a little while there," Constable Lowden said.

"It [was] quite scary, what I was involved in. [But] I didn't feel like I could leave [her side], I didn't want to leave."

When officers received the call for help, they were only told there was a girl "with something around her neck", she said.

"I wasn't quite sure how to determine what that was at the time. It was quite tense, being quite a large house as well, trying to find [Madeleine]."

They eventually found Madeleine, crouched down on her knees in her bedroom, where she had been studying.

"She was quite distressed, she was teary, but at the same time you could tell she was a strong girl," Constable Lowden said.

The "bomb", which turned out to be a fake, weighed about two kilograms, with Madeleine unable to move for fear of setting it off.

"There were times where it was getting a bit heavy but she knew we couldn't get it off . . . and we had to leave it where it [was]," Constable Lowden said.

"I do remember there was one time I thought … if something were to happen [to set the bomb off], it wouldn't be good."

Constable Lowden said she tried to calm Madeleine by talking about her studies and her hobbies, including art.

Detective Superintendent Luke Moore, who headed the police investigation, said he was "always looking at the clock" as police tried to crack the bomb.

"... if you put a foot wrong ... there could be some very catastrophic consequences," he told Today Tonight. "She had to hold it at a very uncomfortable angle and try not to tilt it."

In the NSW District Court on Tuesday, Judge Peter Zahra sentenced the businessman Paul Douglas Peters to at least 10 years in jail for the crime.

But Detective Moore said Peters would not say why he targeted Madeleine and her family.